Yukon who is who

Patrick Burns (1856 – 1937)

Patrick Burns was born near Oshawa, Upper Canada to Michael and Bridget (Gibson) O’Byrne. Patrick and his family with seven siblings moved to a farm north of Kirkfield. He received a basic education at the local school and was not illiterate as is sometimes stated. A Kirkfield friend, William Mackenzie, would become instrumental in Burn’s career as a beef merchant. In 1877, Patrick and elder brother John moved to homestead in Manitoba. They arrived in Winnipeg and walked more than 100 miles west to file on quarter sections of land at Tanner’s Crossing (Minnedosa). They needed money and Burns worked on the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) construction project in order to settle the land and start a freighting business. He began to deal in cattle, buying them from local farmers and selling them in the city. In 1886, he experimented with shipping live hogs by rail to eastern markets. He stayed on his homestead until 1885 when he started buying cattle full-time. In 1887, he was contracted to supply meat to CPR’s construction camps. He established a mobile slaughtering facility that could move as the rail line was extended. He employed a butcher and did the buying and droving himself. Financial backing from the railway allowed him to expand his business and he built his first slaughterhouse in 1890 in Calgary. He sold meat and livestock into British Columbia and set up retail outlets there. To guarantee supply he purchased property for a ranch with partner Cornelius J. Duggan near Olds, Alberta. They acquired cattle locally and from as far away as Manitoba. They were able to provide for between 20,000 and 30,000 head of cattle by 1904. In 1898, Burn added mutton and pork to his products and in 1899 he purchased the MacIntosh Sheep Ranch northeast of Calgary.¹⁾

Patrick Burns was one of the first to deliver beef to miners in Dawson. The first shipment of cattle in 1897 was taken by rail to Vancouver and shipped to Skagway, Alaska and then herded over the Chilkoot Pass and slaughtered near Fort Selkirk. The meat was floated down the Yukon River to Dawson on rafts. He sent another shipment of beef to Dawson in 1898. In 1902, he sent 12 reefer cars of frozen beef from Calgary to Vancouver and transported it north on a cold storage steamer.²⁾

At various times Burns had stores in Dawson, Mayo, Keno City and Whitehorse in the Yukon, and in Atlin, Pine City, and Bennett in British Columbia. The Burns building is still standing on Main Street in Whitehorse. In 1921, T.C. Richards was the manager of the Burns Company in Whitehorse. He took a herd of cattle from Fort Selkirk to Mayo and this was the last of the Yukon overland cattle drives.³⁾

Between 1900 and 1903, Burns commissioned Francis Mawson Rattenbury to build a family mansion, Burns Manor, in Calgary. His business continued to grow, and he became the acknowledged beef king of western Canada. In 1905, his operations were incorporated as P. Burns and Company. The Vatican awarded Burn the rank of Knight Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great in 1914. In 1931, at age seventy-one, he became a senator and sat as an independent. Tributes at his birthday party acknowledged his many public and charitable causes. He was among four prominent cattlemen who supported the first Calgary Stampede.⁴⁾